The vineyard is quiet, fog, rain and dormancy of the vines is where we are now.
As January is here, we have started the pruning of our 400 plus acres, (it takes a while). A reflection on the past years growth and yield factors into pruning decisions this year, with the always rising cost of labor having a huge factor on this job and the next jobs in the vineyard. We focus now on varieties less susceptible to pruning wound diseases like Chardonnay.
As the leaves fall you can see many cool things, a neat phenomenon that can be seen here on this young Cabernet Franc vineyard on the way into the winery shows the "second crop" that hangs on even after leaves have fallen. Young vines tend to have a lot of "second crop" that the vine sets later after it sets the primary crop. This is not really a problem as the primary fruit we harvested from this was quite good, but it shows the abundance of stored energy a young vine has.